Little New Contributions to the Philosophy of History

1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-90-481-9410-0
Verlag: Springer-Verlag
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 240 Seiten

Insights developed in the past two decades by philosophers of the social sciences can serve to enrich the challenging intellectual tasks of conceptualizing, investigating, and representing the human past. Likewise, intimate engagement with the writings of historians can deepen philosophers' understanding of the task of knowing the past. This volume brings these perspectives together and considers fundamental questions, such as: What is historical causation? What is a large historical structure? How can we best conceptualize 'mentalities' and 'identities'? What is involved in understanding the subjectivity of historical actors? What is involved in arriving at an economic history of a large region? How are actions and outcomes related? The arguments touch upon a wide range of historical topics -- the Chinese and French Revolutions, the extension of railroads in the nineteenth century, and the development of agriculture in medieval China.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Little, Daniel

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Contents;6
2;1 Introduction: Historys Pathways;9
2.1;1.1 The Historians Tasks;13
2.2;1.2 History of the Present;14
2.3;1.3 Metaphors for History;16
3;2 History and Narrative;19
3.1;2.1 Philosophy and the Historians;19
3.2;2.2 What Is History;22
3.2.1;2.2.1 Micro, Meso, Macro;23
3.2.2;2.2.2 Longue Durée;25
3.2.3;2.2.3 Marc Bloch's History;27
3.2.4;2.2.4 Comparative History;31
3.2.5;2.2.5 New Understandings of China's Cultural Revolution;34
3.3;2.3 Narratives of History;36
3.3.1;2.3.1 Selectivity: China at War;39
3.3.2;2.3.2 Narrative and Bias;40
3.3.3;2.3.3 History, Memory, and Narrative---Recent China;42
3.3.4;2.3.4 Age Cohorts and Historical Experience;44
3.3.5;2.3.5 Maps and Narratives;45
4;3 Historical Concepts and Social Ontology;48
4.1;3.1 Ontology and Explanation;48
4.1.1;3.1.1 Things;49
4.1.2;3.1.2 Events;51
4.2;3.2 Concepts and Kinds;53
4.2.1;3.2.1 Historical Ontology of the French Revolution;54
4.2.2;3.2.2 A Tabulation of Historical Ontology;59
4.2.3;3.2.3 Do Historical Categories Capture Social Kinds?;59
4.3;3.3 Methodological Localism;64
4.4;3.4 The Heterogeneous Social;69
4.4.1;3.4.1 Variation;71
4.4.2;3.4.2 The Heterogeneous Social Whole;73
4.4.3;3.4.3 What Cities Have in Common;76
4.5;3.5 Conclusions;78
5;4 Large Structures;80
5.1;4.1 Is France a Nation;83
5.2;4.2 A Modern World System;85
5.3;4.3 Revolutions of 1848;88
5.4;4.4 Explaining Fascism;90
5.5;4.5 Generalizations;92
5.5.1;4.5.1 Similarity and Difference;94
5.6;4.6 Predictions;96
5.7;4.7 The New Meso-History;99
6;5 Causal Mechanisms;103
6.1;5.1 A Range of Causal Questions;104
6.2;5.2 Causal Realism;107
6.3;5.3 Examples of Social Mechanisms;113
6.3.1;5.3.1 Transportation as a Large-Scale Historical Factor;114
6.4;5.4 Many Small Causes;118
6.4.1;5.4.1 Causes of the Chinese Revolution;119
6.5;5.5 General and Specific Causal Hypotheses;123
6.6;5.6 Causal Reasoning in Meso-History;125
7;6 History of Technology;127
7.1;6.1 History of Electric Power;128
7.2;6.2 Alternative Forms of Industrial Organization;131
7.3;6.3 Railroads as a Historical Cause;133
7.4;6.4 Water Transport in China;137
7.5;6.5 Agriculture and the Natural Environment;138
7.6;6.6 Warfare: The Franco-Prussian War;139
7.7;6.7 Technology and Culture;142
7.8;6.8 Observations from the Examples;144
8;7 Economic History;147
8.1;7.1 What Is Economic History;147
8.1.1;7.1.1 Explanation in Economic History;149
8.1.2;7.1.2 Problems of Evidence;152
8.2;7.2 Aspects of Chinas Rural Economy;153
8.2.1;7.2.1 Agricultural History;154
8.2.2;7.2.2 Assessment of Available Sources of Data;157
8.3;7.3 Population History;159
8.3.1;7.3.1 The Eurasia Project on Population and Family History;161
8.4;7.4 Comparative Economic History;165
8.4.1;7.4.1 Scale and Scope of Comparison;167
8.4.2;7.4.2 Alternative Pathways of Development in Europe and Asia;168
8.4.3;7.4.3 Agricultural Revolution and Stagnation Within Europe;170
8.5;7.5 Contingency and Alternative Pathways of Development;174
9;8 The Involution Debate;177
9.1;8.1 Chinas Early Modern Rural Economy;177
9.2;8.2 Involution or Revolution in the Early Qing;179
9.2.1;8.2.1 Population Trends;182
9.2.2;8.2.2 Productivity;182
9.2.3;8.2.3 Real Wage Comparisons;184
9.2.4;8.2.4 Institutional Settings;184
9.2.5;8.2.5 Environmental Exhaustion;185
9.2.6;8.2.6 Conclusions on the Involution Debate;187
9.3;8.3 Immiseration or Gradual Improvement in Republican China;188
9.3.1;8.3.1 The Received View;189
9.3.2;8.3.2 Revision;190
9.3.3;8.3.3 Price Integration;192
9.3.4;8.3.4 Output;192
9.3.5;8.3.5 Real Wages;193
9.3.6;8.3.6 Productivity;195
9.3.7;8.3.7 Distributive Consequences;196
9.3.8;8.3.8 Conclusion on Brandt;197
9.4;8.4 A Puzzle;197
9.5;8.5 Import for Chinese Studies;198
10;9 Mentalits;201
10.1;9.1 Mentalits in Historical Inquiry;202
10.2;9.2 Components of a Mentalit;204
10.2.1;9.2.1 Interpretation of Historical Actors and Behaviors;205
10.2.2;9.2.2 Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre;209
10.3;9.3 How Is a Social Identity Created and Reproduced;211
10.3.1;9.3.1 E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class;214
10.4;9.4 Are Mentalits Stable Over Time;217
10.5;9.5 Are Mentalits Historical Causes;219
10.5.1;9.5.1 Charles Tilly and Contentious Politics;220
10.6;9.6 Assessment;221
11;Conclusion;223
12;References;227
13;Index;239